Numerous players on the Battle.net forums say their Diablo 3 accounts have been hacked. Affected players logged in to find all of their items gone and, in some cases, strangers added to their friends list. There are even a few players with Blizzard Authenticators are claiming that they've been compromised .

This morning, our own Tom Hatfield woke up to find all of his items gone, Eurogamer's Chris Donlan was found wandering around Sanctuary being controlled by someone called "Anna", Team Dignitas' Nathaniel tweeted to say that all of his items have been nicked. "I love always on DRM to protect servers," he says.

It's often hard to get a handle on the numbers affected by a hacking outbreak, but the amount of anecdotal accounts suggests a significant problem. It's bizarre enough that players running through Diablo as a single play game are having to put up with account hacks and disappearing items, but there's another concern. The real money auction house is due to open next Tuesday.

Blizzard earlier told forum-goers that they're aware of the issue. "Historically, the release of a new game -- such as a World of Warcraft expansion -- will result in an increase in reports of individual account compromises, and that's exactly what we're seeing now with Diablo 3," they said.

"We know how frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we're dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net accounts safe -- and we appreciate everyone who's doing their part to help protect their accounts as well."

Community manager, Bashiok, posted to say that Blizzard have been "taking the situation extremely seriously from the start, and have done everything possible to verify how and in what circumstances these compromises are occurring," He also mentions that "we have yet to find any situations in which a person's account was not compromised through traditional means of someone else logging into their account through the use of their password."

That suggests the Authenticator is still one of the best ways to keep a Battle.net account safe. It's available as a free app , and can be purchased as a dongle .

Blizzard's servers have been up and down all week. On Sunday they were down for hours in Europe. Chris and I were trading and crafting as quickly as possible as the ten second countdown expired. Then we were kicked out and unable to play for most of the day. Error 37 and emergency maintenance periods have been locking players out in the US after launch. On the whole, it's been a mess.

It's sad, because the game behind the connection issues is awesome. Our Diablo 3 review went live earlier today.